


Preservation of History

by Captain_Revo



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-10 11:15:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20134540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Revo/pseuds/Captain_Revo
Summary: Seven, Paris and Torres take the Delta Flyer into a dark matter nebula and find an incredible discovery.





	Preservation of History

Tom Paris expertly handled the controls of the _Delta Flyer_ as it swooped in and out of the dense clusters within the dark matter nebula, one of the most mysterious and potentiality dangerous substances in the universe. Chief Engineer B'Elanna Torres sat next to him in the co-pilot's seat, constantly adjusting the shield frequencies to compensate for the instability within the unstable anomaly. The former Borg drone, Seven of Nine, positioned at the science station behind, was busy mapping the region, trying to extrapolate and project the safest course through the hazardous spacial terrain.

"I have flown through my fair share of dark matter fields, but I've never seen anything like this," said Tom, as he veered hard to port to narrowly avoid ramming into a patch of dark matter that could have crushed the Delta Flyer into something the size of a grape.

Seven tapped a panel on the LCARS display. "The nebula is at least five hundred percent denser than a typical cluster of this size. Even the Borg have never encountered such a field," she said.

"Lucky us," Tom replied while gritting his teeth, "Next time we run into your former fiends we'll have something to brag about to make the collective jealous."

"The Borg will not be interested in your bragging, Lieutenant," retorted Seven.

Tom smiled to himself. Seven had been working on her sense of humour but it was often hard to tell when she took his dry wit too seriously. 

"Let's try to get out in one piece first before we give the Collective a call," quipped B'Elanna, rubbing the back of her neck with a sense of unease. This was meant to be a fairly routine mission. Go to the nebula, collect Nitritium samples that had been pulled into the nebula, and wait for _Voyager_ to return. Of course they had drastically underestimated the strength of the clusters that had pulled the valuable mineral deep into its core.

"My dear wife, do you doubt my piloting skills?" he asked playfully.

"Of course not, my dear husband. I doubt the polarity strength of this shield matrix we installed," she said, rapidly pressing controls with a nervous look on her face. The _Delta Flyer_ had recently been destroyed in an engagement with the Borg. While the second iteration was technically identical there was no accounting for active duty and in the field adjustments that are made over time. She had the original purring like an Adosian kitten, but she had to start from scratch, adjusting to its unique quirks. She had been tinkering with the shields and deflectors for weeks trying to get them to reach optimal efficiency. She had been happy with the results but then she also wasn't expecting to encounter the most power dark matter nebula known to exist.

"Did Seven tell you I took her to an amusement park on the holodeck?" he asked randomly. 

"Is this really the time, Tom?" she snapped, her klingon temper slipping through. His ability to bring up the most inane comments at critical times irritated her no end.

"Talking relaxes me." he replied, making the _Flyer_ perform a rolling manoeuvre out of the way of an incoming blob of mass. '_And trust me you need me relaxed for this one.'_

They sat in silence for a minute. Tom made several more course corrections that Seven had fed to his display. Eventually anticipation got the better of B'Elanna "Well?" Did you enjoy it?" she asked the former drone.

Seven looked up from her console. "No," came the short reply. She lowered her head and returned to her mapping algorithms.

Tom scoffed, "Oh, come on, Seven, there's no need to be embarrassed about having a little fun."

Now Seven also became irritated at their pilot. "I am not experiencing embarrassment, Lieutenant Paris. I did not have fun." 

"You must've enjoyed some of it?" asked B'Elanna.

She was about to reply 'No' again when she stopped to consider. "I did find the Hall of Mirrors... intriguing."

"Intriguing," he said sarcastically. "High praise from a Borg."

She ignored the comment, "The refractive visual effect of the concave, and convex reflective surfaces created an appealing three dimensional locational puzzle for my ocular implant to extrapolate the correct path out."

Tom audibly sighed and slapped the side of his head with his palm and ran his hand down his cheek, while he snorted a chuckle to himself, causing B'Elanna to stifle a giggle.

"Did I say something amusing?" Seven asked, perplexed at their responses. An alarm sounded from her console before anyone could respond. "Lieutenants. I am reading an object on the edge of sensors. It appears to be coming from the approximate centre of the nebula."

"Is this something we really need to investigate? We only came in here to collect Nitritium samples and we have more than enough now," asked B'Elanna groaning at the prospect of heading deeper into danger, her hands still darting from one panel to another desperately trying to keep the shields in tact. 

"We are explores after all," replied Tom "or at least so the brochure says."

Seven often had little idea what Mr. Paris was saying and just chose to ignore most of the superfluous words.

Tom quickly turned his head for a split second and saw the look of concern on B'Elanna's face. "Look, we are meant to rendezvous with Voyager on the other side once they return from that trading station, and we are almost near the centre as it is. It's only a minor detour, and saves us having to fly round the outer edge of it," B'Elanna weighed up his words and even though it sounded a flimsy excuse to go check out something that was likely extremely dangerous, she gave him a begrudging nod.

"Seven, plot us a course," he ordered.

The ship flew further into the treacherous clusters of mass and gravity, darting and rolling its way through the shadowy deposits. Dark matter was typically invisible, but when enough of it clumped together it began to take on a shadowy globular form. Bolts of energy sparked between the clusters that occasionally struck the shields destabilising them. If not for their Chief Engineer's brilliance they would have been destroyed within minutes of entering. The ship moved towards the strange object as it grew larger on their sensors, which were having difficulty determining what it was, but, it was very big. It was not long before they could see it out of the front window. It was a massive complex, approximately the size of Mars. It most mostly spherical but had cuts and inserts that appeared to be chambers, possibly docking ports across its surface. Lights danced across its outer hull, and it glowed purple and green against the darkness of the nebula. 

"Impressive construction," said Seven, admiring the ingenuity to build something of this size.

"I'll say," replied Tom. "This thing makes a Borg cube look it was built by Pakleds."

B'Elanna look on in amazement. "Is it a Dyson Sphere?" 

"No," replied Seven, her dismissive tone irking her, "It's too small to be a Dyson Sphere which requires being constructed around a star." 

"I wonder if it was constructed inside the nebula, or if the dark matter nebula formed around it?" B'Elanna said, thinking out loud to no one in particular. Both ideas where both exciting and terrifying. The ability and technical skill to construct something surrounded by existing dark matter, was mind boggling. The ability to build an object that could draw dark matter to it, was equally dizzying in its scope.

Seven was already busy taking scans of the monstrous complex. She could net penetrate much beyond the surface, but what she discovered was astounding. The ran the scan again to be sure. "This structure is over seven billion years old.

"Excuse me?" B'Elanna scoffed incredulously. Did you say seven billion years?" 

"Indeed. I have confirmed the scans. Seven point two billion years."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," interjected Tom, remembering his medical texts the Doctor had forced him to read, "but didn't our best estimates put life beginning in our galaxy around five billion years ago, and even that was just simple cell life. It took another three billion before it turned into anything that could even attempt to construct something like that."

"You are correct, Lieutenant," replied Seven. "The Collective has a similar timeline. Either our estimates were wildly inaccurate, or this does not originate from our galaxy." 

"We may have just made the greatest scientific and archaeological discovery since Richard Galen's Unifying Theory of Life," said B'Elanna, a huge grin on her face. 

"Have my Crater Prize posted to the Delta Quadrant." Tom added. She laughed.

Their joy was short lived when a tractor beam locked onto the craft. It drained their shield in seconds. A wave of green light passed over them before they could react. The nebula disappeared from around them. Seconds later it was replaced with metal walls, vast pylons that must have been the thickness of small starbases, and hundreds of walkways and tubes crossing back and forth stretching for miles. The entire vessel had been transported inside the structure. The feint blue light of some power source could be seen flashing in the background. The _Delta Flyer_ was stationed on some sort of docking platform, high in the air. Several walkway extended out from the platform in multiple directions. Strange organic looking machines zipped around the craft.

"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," Tom said, both in awe and concern at the vastness of the construct. A shudder rippled across his back, and his hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. 

Seven tapped away at her panel. The panel 'beeped' and 'bobbed' back at her. "I am detecting one life sign." 

B'Elanna turned around to the former drone looking surprised "Just one? In this entire facility?" 

"It is possible the sensors are not collaborated to detect the type of life that exists here, or there may be some kind of interference," she stated. 

"Can you pinpoint its location," asked B'Elanna.

"Don't bother," said Tom, who was looking out the forward viewer. "It's right in front of us."

Torres spun back round to see the figure approach. "There must be air inside."

Walking down a long corridor was a tall alien creature. It must have stood at over eight feet tall and had four arms, the lower two slightly shorter, and two legs. It was thin and pale, and almost slid across the floor. It did not appear to wear clothes but instead a shimmer of light covered its body. Spirals of blue and green enveloped his body. It momentarily turned into a ghostly image as it reached the front f the craft and phased through the hull. Tom and B'Elanna jumped from their seats and pressed themselves against the side walls as the being moved between them. Seven remained calm and admired the spectacle. It transitioned back to its corporeal state. Tom grabbed his phaser and pointed it at the alien.

"Hold it right there, pal." he shouted, lowering his voice to sound more intimidating.

The alien look at him quizzically. Tom returned the look. He could see it neither looked male or female. Its pale grey skin was shimmering. It's eyes pure black and Tom could see his reflection in them. The intruder turned its head towards a side panel on the ship. It flicked momentarily. "I have accessed your database and learned your language. Please, I mean you no harm. Your phased particle beam weapon will cause me no injury." 

"If it's all the same to you, I'll keep it pointed at you," he replied, moving around his chair to free his legs.

"As you wish." said the alien calmly. The sound was silky smooth, almost lyrical.

B'Elanna looked on in sudden realisation. "Wait a minute, you're not talking. Are you communicating telepathically?"

The alien had no observable mouth. "Yes, My species' vocal cords have not worked for some time." 

Tom scratched at the corner of the phaser with his nail before catching himself and stopping the nervous energy. "You have a name, friend?" 

The alien cocked its head for a moment in consideration. The three of them heard a short burst of what sounded like music in their minds. "My personal identification is too complex for your limited bodies to replicate."

Tom shook his head to get rid of the ringing. "That was new."

B'Elanna took a step forward. "What do you want from us?" 

"To meet you." it said, the words forming in their minds like pictures forming on a canvas, "It has been a long time since I have had any contact with another individual. You no doubt have many questions, so allow me to explain. This station comes from a time deep into your future. Tens of trillions of years in fact. As you may or may not be aware the universe has a finite life cycle. The physics involved is likely beyond your comprehension, but simply put when one universe dies, another is formed in a never ending cycle. Reality continues on forever in new and different ways. Quite beautiful when you consider it."

"Errrm.... good to know." said Tom trying to process what was being said, "But what are you doing here in the past, your past that is?"

It looked at Tom. "Under any normal circumstances nothing can survive the collapse of the universe, every planet, every creature, compound, molecule, and atom is torn asunder, and space snaps into non-existence like a..." it paused searching for the word, "like a burst balloon. The subatomic particles coalesce back into a singularity and a new universe is formed. I believe you call it a 'Big Bang'.

"That's right." said B'Elanna,

"We sought to avoid that fate." it continued. "Nothing can pass from one universe to another as time begins anew. Each new universe has a unique set of physics and cosmic variables, and almost certainly nothing would be able to exist there from an early iteration even if it could get there. This station was constructed to oversee the end of time and at the final moment travel back into time to preserve all the knowledge that had been gathered and stored here over its operational life. Otherwise everything that ever happened; every song, every war, every idea, would be lost forever."

"You use the dark matter as a form of exotic gravity to generate a wormhole through time and space." said Seven. There was almost excitement in her voice.

It raised what looked like an eyebrow, "I am impressed, you are quite correct." 

"So this facility is a... library?" B'Elanna asked

"Crude, but also correct." came the reply in her mind.

Tom asked "Are there others here? We only detected you."

A wave of sadness crossed its face "Much like the universe itself, they lived and died. We operated this facility for billions of years, thousands of species from across the universe working together, travelling through time, gaining access to knowledge thought lost through the ages. But for everything there is a time and while we can outrun our destiny, eventually the universe demands our atoms back. No species can live forever. I am the last of us. I am the last being in the universe, relatively speaking of course. In a few years I too will be dead."

The magnitude of the revelations was astounding. To meet the last living creature from their universe. The things it has seen, the knowledge it possess.

Seven asked "What is your ultimate goal, other than the preservation of knowledge? If you are the only one left alive to access any of the data, what is the point?"

It nodded, "At the start it was the continuation of life itself. No one wanted to die, no one wanted the universe to end. We continued on our civilisations as best we could within the confines of this facility, only venturing out to discreetly gather more knowledge. That seemed enough, and so it was for billions of years. We travelled throughout history, throughout the cosmos. The wonders we saw, the tragedies we witnessed. Astounding."

"But?" asked the Chief Engineer.

"For various reasons too complex and numerous to convey, our numbers grew fewer over the aeons. As we began to dwindle and die it became obvious that the remnants of our universe were doomed, and it became more imperative to find a way to pass on what we had achieved, but we could not give it to anyone in our past. It would change the future and potentially cause great harm if people found out what awaited their civilisations for years to come, of to gain access to technology trillions of years more advanced than anyone alive."

Seven thought for a moment before saying "You are trying to find a way to cross into the next universe?" 

Tom scratched his head, as this talk of theoretical universal physics was a little above him "Wait. I thought you just said that was impossible?"

"Impossible is a concept I have learned never to use. It is extremely unlikely and requires subverting the laws of reality, but we have become quite adept at that. One must find a way to cross into a new iteration of time that goes far beyond traversing standard quantum realities, then compensate for the new laws of physics in that universe. The forces that bound their atoms together is likely to be different to ours. We would simply fly apart, or be crushed on an atomic level if we appeared there. Gravity will be different. Space itself may even even different. But it did not stop us from trying. We wanted to act as teachers and guides, so that the new species would know what had come before them. Maybe not make the same mistake of this one."

Tom stared blankly, "I see."

"But alas, our efforts were for nought. If there is a way to cross over, we have not found it. With time running out I find it unlikely that I will. Everything we were, and are will be lost."

"I'm sorry." said B'Elanna

Its arms raised in a reassuring gesture. "Do not be. Perhaps it is better this way. Perhaps sending the data into another universe would impact them negatively in the way we feared it would impact ours. Maybe this is the way it is meant to be. A clean slate for every version of reality. The Universe always wins, no matter how hard we fight against it. It eventually takes what belongs to it."

Tom squinted. He sounded not unlike Annorax, the Krenim scientist who believed 'Time' itself held a grudge against him. Most likely they had both been driven slightly mad at the daunting situations they faced ans time alone. "What will happen to this station when you die?" 

"It is set to record my lifesigns. When I die, the station will automatically jump back to its starting point trillions of years in the future moments after it originally left. The universe will reclaim it when it collapses. We held off the inevitable for as long as we could. Of that we can be proud."

"So no chance you can give us any information? Data on this region of space, a faster propulsion system?" Tom already knew the answer but had a duty to ask.

"The universe must play out the way it was meant to. Which is why I must regrettably erase your memories of this event. But I do wish to thank you. You gave me someone to converse with, there will not be many more, and I have downloaded your database to add to the archives. For a few more years you will have contributed to this grand project. You too should be proud, even if you won't remember it."

"Whoa. Is that absolutely n-"

A wave of energy swept over the ship. The three crew members were back in deep space.

"_Voyager_ must be running late," said Tom, checking the chronometer. 

"Maybe they decided to leave us," suggested B'Elanna

"Well they might decide to leave you, but I'm indispensable," he joked. 

B'Elanna playfully punched him.

Seven was re-calibrating sensors when a backup node in her Borg implants activated a dormant file. The alien had wiped their memories as it said, but he missed her backup files. The data followed back into her conscience mind and she remembered everything. It was quite disconcerting as she also remembered the false memories that it had implanted alongside the real events. Her false memory told her that the dark matter nebula was much smaller than expected and the ships warp engines had dissipated it after collecting the Nitritium. They were now waiting for _Voyager_ to return. She scanned for the ship and detected a Federation signature on the very edge oh the sweep.

"Earth to seven." said Tom loudly.

She was startled and replied, "Yes, Yes, Lieutenant." 

Tom looked on annoyed. "I've been talking to you for a minute. You haven't heard a word I just said, did you?"

"My apologies. I was distracted by something."

"Nothing important I hope?"

She considered whether she should mention anything to the others. No doubt the ships logs had been altered. There seemed little to gain by explaining what had happened, and she wanted to respect the aliens wishes that no change occurred to the timeline. The universe would live on in some small way through her memories. "No, nothing important." she replied.


End file.
